Vicarious dissonance: Attitude change from the inconsistency of others.

Three studies support the vicarious dissonance hypothesis that individuals change their attitudes when witnessing members of important groups engage in inconsistent behavior. Study 1, in which participants observed an actor in an induced-compliance paradigm, documented that students who identified with their college supported an issue more after hearing an ingroup member make a counterattitudinal speech in favor of that issue. In Study 2, vicarious dissonance occurred even when participants did not hear a speech, and attitude change was highest when the speaker was known to disagree with the issue. Study 3 showed that speaker choice and aversive consequences moderated vicarious dissonance, and demonstrated that vicarious discomfort--the discomfort observers imagine feeling if in an actor's place--was attenuated after participants expressed their revised attitudes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A conflict-theory interpretation of attitude change in forced compliance situations.

Attitude change following forced compliance was studied in a 4 × 2 × 2 × 2 × 2 design. Using one of four predesignated issues under two levels of incentive, subjects who had previously expressed either high or low interest in the issue, were invited to make a counter-attitudinal tape-recording. Half of the groups originated their own arguments while half read prepared arguments. Half of the subjects actually engaged in the role playing while half simply committed themselves to the task before answering a post-test questionnaire. It was found that the origins of the argument, role-playing performance, and high incentive levels were potent forces in promoting attitude change. High-interest subjects generally showed more attitude change than low-interest subjects. Both positive and negative relations between magnitude of incentive and attitude change were obtained. These results were found to be consistent with a conflict theory interpretation which relegates cognitive dissonance phenomena to a "special case" interpretation. Some theoretical implications of the results are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attitude change through reward of verbal behavior.

"72 Ss were induced to engage in debates on 3 different issues, taking sides opposite to those which they had indicated as their own in an opinion pretest. Half of the Ss were rewarded, in a predetermined order, by a purported vote which proclaimed them the better debators, while the other half were punished by presumably losing the debate. Posttests of Ss' opinions showed a tendency of the 'winners' to change their opinions in the direction of their debates, while the 'losers' did not change significantly. A control group of nondebators likewise showed no significant change in opinions." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attitude change through modification of attitude structure.

183 experimental Ss were tested regarding their attitudes toward allowing Negroes to move into white neighborhoods, toward 25 values in terms of expected satisfaction from each, and toward the 25 values in terms of "allowing Negroes to move into white neighborhoods" would lead to or block attainment of the values both before and after a change procedure designed to increase the S's awareness that nonsegregation would lead to the attainment of four important values. The experimental procedure changed perceptions and attitudes toward Negro housing segregation in S's with moderate initial attitude on the issue. Little attitude change was produced in extremely prejudiced and extremely nonprejudiced S's (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Social reinforcement in attitude change.

Ss were exposed to an attitude different than one they had expressed previously with the purpose of seeing whether postcommunicative conversation would reflect attempts at reducing such cognitive dissonance. Analyzing the conversation of women who had been exposed to attitudes concerning toilet training which was different than the one they had expressed indicated that they did tend to reduce cognitive dissonance by seeking out information that either agreed with their formally held notion or the newly advocated one. From Psyc Abstracts 36:04:4GD09M. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of justification for aggression and communication with the victim on postaggression dissonance.

College Ss opposed to using electric shock voluntarily delivered shock to another person (the victim). 4 independent variables (justification for aggressing, shock intensity, opportunity for communication with the victim, and sex) were related to dependent measures of obligation (to shock), guilt, estimate of injury, attraction (willingness to give shocks again), and feeling of being qualified. Content of S's communication to the victim was also examined. Results were: (a) obligation, guilt, estimate of injury, and unwillingness to repeat experiment, were greater when there was no justification or communication and when shock was high; (b) there were sex differences in both main effects and interactions; and (c) communication to the victim varied with shock intensity, justification, and sex of S. (15 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attitude change through refutation and elaboration of audience counterarguments.

"An experiment was conducted involving a comparison of the effectiveness of (a) refutation versus no refutation, and (b) elaboration versus no elaboration of audience counterarguments in changing attitude toward the Korean War. Two independent samples were obtained: one consisted of recruits in basic training at a military base; the second consisted of high school students… . Each of the experimental programs was effective in changing attitude toward the Korean War." The results are analyzed in terms of the major variables manipulated. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive consequences of forced compliance.

Atest of some hypotheses generated by Festinger's theory of cognitive dissonance, viz., that "if a person is induced to do or say something which is contrary to his private opinion, there will be a tendency for him to change his opinion so as to bring it into correspondence with what he has done or said. The larger the pressure used to elicit the overt behavior… the weaker will be the… tendency… . The results strongly corroborate the theory." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Expectancy, homework compliance, and initial change in cognitive-behavioral therapy for anxiety.

Belief in one's ability to change is an important cognitive variable related to treatment gains. This study investigated pretreatment expectancy for anxiety change and early homework compliance in relation to initial and total cognitive change in group cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) for anxiety. Participants, who met diagnostic criteria for at least 1 anxiety disorder, completed 10 sessions of group CBT. Early homework compliance mediated the relationship between expectancy for anxiety change at baseline and initial change in CBT. In addition, initial cognitive symptom improvement mediated the relationship between homework compliance and posttreatment outcome. These results suggest that expectancy for change is an important cognitive variable that may provide the initial impetus and subsequent momentum for therapeutic involvement and gains. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attitudinal effects of choice in exposure to counterpropaganda.

Conditions are explored "under which exposure to information discrepant form one's own opinion produces cognitive dissonance and consequent attitude change… . The results were discussed in terms of the importance of prior choice in exposure in creating dissonance." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Compliance and attitude change under conditions of differential social reinforcement.

12 Ss known to have positive attitudes toward the church, as measured by a modification of Thurstone's scale, were induced to read a strongly antichurch essay before 3-person audiences. Unknown to any of the Ss, 4 speakers addressed prochurch listeners, 4 read the speech to neutral groups, and 4 faced audiences composed of antichurch individuals. All of the groups then discussed the communication for 12 min. The speakers as a group showed a change in attitude toward the church consistent with the position taken by the comunication. This change toward a less favorable stand was found to come principally from those speakers who had discussed the speech with individuals who were either neutral or negatively disposed toward the church. The results are interpreted as supporting a reinforcement theory of attitude change in an induced compliance situation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Role playing, incentive, and dissonance.

Incentive theory is advanced as more satisfactory than dissonance theory in dealing with attitude change induced through role playing. Incentive theory and dissonance theory yield opposite predictions about attitudinal results of role playing which involves different incentive levels. Experimental studies in this area are reviewed, and alternative explanations are discussed. Results which appear to support dissonance theory can generally be attributed to the arousal of interfering negative affect by increasing reward levels. When opportunity for instigation of such interfering reactions is low, increased reward may lead to more effective biased scanning and thus to more attitude change. Complicating factors are noted. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Determinants of justification and self-control.

The authors propose that people use 2 routes in justifying self-gratification: 1st through hard work or excellence (entitlement) and the 2nd through the attainment of vices without depleting income. This framework was tested using real tasks and choices adopted from prior research on self-control. The results indicate that (a) higher effort and (bogus) excellence feedback increase preferences for vice rewards, but these effects are reversed or attenuated when the interchangeability of effort and income is implied; (b) willingness to pay in effort is greater for vices than virtues, but willingness to pay in income is higher for virtues; and (c) these effects are magnified among individuals with stronger (chronic or manipulated) guilt. The authors discuss the ability of the justification routes to explain the findings of prior self-control research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive consistency and attitude change.

The effect of temporal presentation of ideas, consistency of presented attitude, and wishful thinking on the logicalness of thinking was investigated. The results were discussed in relation to previous empirical and theoretical research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive restructuring and attitude change.

Factors which influence attitude change were investigated by determining attitudes of non-Catholic college Ss to the possibility of their becoming Catholic. These attitudes were then explored under 2 subsequent experimental conditions defined by a willingness to participate further in the project. If willing, they were forced to realize the meaning of their written attitudes. The results indicated an interactive effect with increased change of opinion or resistance to change. This was determined by the degree of option to participate in interaction while being forced to recognize the implications of the meaning of their written statements. Awareness of meaning in interaction with freedom to participate or not produced the greatest attitude change; interaction with no freedom produced the greatest resistance to change. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Communicator credibility and communication discrepancy as determinants of opinion change.

The theory of cognitive dissonance suggests that opinion change is a function of a specific complex interaction between the credibility of the communicator and the discrepancy of the communication from the initial attitude of the recipient. In a laboratory experiment, Ss who read a communication that was attributed to a highly credible source showed greater opinion change when the opinion of the source was presented as being increasingly discrepant from their own. In sharp contrast to this was the behavior of Ss who were exposed to the same communication—attributed to a source having only moderate credibility. In this condition, increasing the discrepancy increased the degree of opinion change only to a point; as discrepancy became more extreme, however, the degree of opinion change decreased. The results support predictions from the theory and suggest a reconciliation of previously contradictory findings. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The time for doing is not the time for change: Effects of general action and inaction goals on attitude retrieval and attitude change.

Implicit in many informal and formal principles of psychological change is the understudied assumption that change requires either an active approach or an inactive approach. This issue was systematically investigated by comparing the effects of general action goals and general inaction goals on attitude change. As prior attitudes facilitate preparation for an upcoming persuasive message, general action goals were hypothesized to facilitate conscious retrieval of prior attitudes and therefore hinder attitude change to a greater extent than general inaction goals. Experiment 1 demonstrated that action primes (e.g., “go,” “energy”) yielded faster attitude report than inaction primes (e.g., “rest,” “still”) among participants who were forewarned of an upcoming persuasive message. Experiment 2 showed that the faster attitude report identified in Experiment 1 was localized on attitudes toward a message topic participants were prepared to receive. Experiments 3, 4, and 5 showed that, compared with inaction primes, action primes produced less attitude change and less argument scrutiny in response to a counterattitudinal message on a previously forewarned topic. Experiment 6 confirmed that the effects of the primes on attitude change were due to differential attitude retrieval. That is, when attitude expression was induced immediately after the primes, action and inaction goals produced similar amounts of attitude change. In contrast, when no attitude expression was induced after the prime, action goals produced less attitude change than inaction goals. Finally, Experiment 7 validated the assumption that these goal effects can be reduced or reversed when the goals have already been satisfied by an intervening task. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Fear and attitude change.

To explore attitude change under high-fear conditions, an experimental group of student nurses was tested 3 times during a 6-wk. TB affiliation. This group showed significantly greater attitude change than a control group. In the experimental group, anticipatory-fear and fear-decrease scores were positively correlated with favorable attitude-change scores. High fear apparently facilitated attitude change in this group. The relationship between fear and attitude change in the high fear experimental group was monotonic with no decrease in attitude change at the highest fear levels. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Summation versus balance in attitude organization and change.

4 groups of 40 Ss were provided with different amounts of positively evaluated information about a fictitious person. The information was presented in such a way that the total amount of affect associated with the information increased as a function of number of pieces of information, while the mean amount of affect associated with the information decreased as a function of number of pieces of information. Thus, the situation was such that maximally different predictions of attitude change would be made by a summation and a balance theory. The results strongly supported the summation theory point of view. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attitude intensity and dissonant cognitions.

Balance and dissonance theory postulate that tension may be reduced by decreasing the importance of dissonant cognitions. 232 students at a southern university and 261 students at a northern university responded to 3 forms of an attitude scale toward integration. Attitude intensity was used as a measure of importance and was correlated with dissonance as measured by perceived discrepancy between Ss' attitude and those of their parents and close friends. The results suggest that: (a) individuals may markedly disagree with primary reference groups when these groups are perceived to be against the broader norms of his culture, and (b) dissonance may result in an increase as well as a decrease in attitude intensity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)